I still acquire audio CDs, which I want to both play through my stereo receiver (but my CD player died) and rip onto my computer (but there's no optical drive). I see many cheap optical drives and portable CD players. Is there a single device that can be used for both purposes?
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2Maybe? Old 5.25" CD drives had a connector for analog output. That will probably be very hard to find now, and it still needs to be used with a PC (so it's sort of pointless if you can just play the CD with software). -- You might want to solve this problem by connecting your stereo receiver to your computer so that you can just use the computer's optical drive. – Romen Nov 14 '19 at 19:47
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1Back in the days, Plextor made CD drives which had a play/skip button, as well as an analog output (as well as a headphone jack). Presumably you could hook them up to just a power supply, plug in your headphones (connect the line output to an amplifier), drop in a CD and play it. The drive itself is still kinda bulky (standard 5.25" form factor), though, and you’d need to power it somehow. – user149408 Jan 07 '20 at 17:50
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Your PC and your stereo are different systems and thus must be treated as such. You can purchase basically any cheap internal or USB optical drive for your computer and it will read/write CDs and DVDs. Then purchase a portable CD player and 3.5mm auxiliary cable to hookup to your stereo. If your stereo does not have any jacks labled "IN" or "AUX" then you must find the exact replacement part for your stereo and repair it, or purchase a new stereo receiver.
Evan
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A lot of modern DVD writers can also read CDs and give the data to your PC using SATA or USB. You can then run special tools like iTunes or Rhythmbox to convert that data to audio in real time. Then you can pass the audio to your stereo receiver and then connect that to some speakers.
Most optical drives can read CDs so you should be good there.
